The House of the Rising Sun, or Fallout: New Jersey
by Princess Rapunzel-chan
Summary: This is, firstly, my attempt at a Fallout story somewhere I find interesting: New Jersey. But, really, this is the story of Zoe Jackson, an Atlantic City P.I. yanked by a mysterious foreigner into a job she can't refuse. It's also about her best friend Kenji, an atoning super mutant desperately trying to find who he was before Vault 87. And it's about the fate of a garden.
1. Introduction

_War. War never changes._

 _The world learned that lesson far too late, when, one day over two hundred years ago, her superpowers turned on themselves with atomic fire. In the conflagration that followed, New York and Philadelphia, along with every other major city on the East Coast of North America, were absolutely annihilated. Tens of millions of lives were erased from existence on a single day._

 _But a handful survived. Some managed to escape the nuclear annihilation by fleeing into great vaults underground, their sealed doors protecting them. Others eked out an existence above ground, surviving decades of radiation and mutation. Yet, as those decades passed, in the lands between the ruined husks of New York and Philadelphia, these survivors, slowly but steadily, managed to rebuild. Here, the highways of the Old World began to flow with trade once again._

 _To the south, an alliance of coastal cities coalesced into a republic, centred on the old town of Atlantic City: the Atlantic Republic. To the north, a group of farming settlements unified under the aegis of a Federation, its capital in Morristown. And all around, independent towns large and small began to flourish._

 _But war, war never changes. As the Republic and the Federation came into contact, a new cold war began, as the two governments began contesting for influence across the entire region. The other settlements in the region have all been swept up into this conflict, some choosing to align with one or the other, others attempting to forge a path of independence._

 _Only the incursions of the Super Mutants from the southwest a decade ago gave cause for the two to settle their differences and forge a truce. But with the Super Mutants now driven back across the Delaware, this brief détente has come to an end._

 _Still, in this wasteland, this is truly a garden._

 _The Garden, for that is what the people of New Jersey call their homeland._


	2. Ventnor City

The already thoroughly repulsive profession of politics is made even more fun when you find yourself unwittingly staring into its face. Literally.

"So nice of you to join us!" Randall Wayne guffaws at me from the other side of the table. As I take in his smooth face – roughly eighteen years old, I'd guess, the same age as me – short hair, and overly athletic physique, just one word flows through my mind as I look at him: _fuckboy._

Really, it's only appropriate. Randall is, after all, the heir to this country's most powerful political family. Their palatial mansion dominates their hometown of Pleasantville on the far side of the bay – rather aptly named, since, from what I hear, the Wayne family is anything but pleasant. His father, Sullivan Wayne, has been President of the Atlantic Republic for the better half of the last decade. For most people in my line of work, Randall would be well above the limit of who they would be willing to probe into.

I test the ropes holding my hands behind this squeaky old chair. I can already feel the one around my left wrist slackening off – judging from his breath, the one lackey who tied me up was probably not the most sober. "Please," I say, trying to put as much hollow pleading into my voice as I can. "I swear I knew nothing about any of this."

"No one enters the Vent with 'nothing to do,' girlie," he sneers.

He's right. The Vent – located to the west and a bit inland of the boardwalk and government district and all those parts of town where all the glittering glamour of the casinos and docks lie – is the part of Atlantic City that not even dirty trade money has reached yet. The Vent is little more than a broken grid of dilapidated houses infested by feral ghouls and mirelurks. The bridge into the Vent is constantly guarded, not to keep it safe, but to keep the Vent's denizens out. But to an armed party such as the one I now find myself a guest of, the Vent is a haven for the illicit. And this, I suspect, is why no one has bothered to have the area forcibly cleared out yet.

I look around, at Randall and his three armed lackeys. One stands by the door, and Randall and the other two stand around me in these crumbling remains of one of the Vent's houses. I'm sitting in what must have once been the dining room. It's night outside – as I can see plain as day through the gaping hole that had once been a toilet – and one of Randall's lackeys is holding a lantern, probably afraid to set it on a termite- and radiation-infested table in the fear that it would collapse. My plasma pistol is sitting on that table, about five feet away. If I could just to get it…

I don't have to wonder what these four are doing here – I already know. It's because of the stack of about a half dozen cases resting against one of the standing walls. One of them is why I'm here: it's a shipment of weapons. Energy weapons, to be exact, supposed to be on the next boat to Rivet City, still in the very case they were in when they were stolen by an armed gang from our present client's merchant house by the boardwalk.

"Now," Randall says, kneeling to put his face on level with mine, having circled the table once and come back. "What, _exactly_ , are you doing here?" His breath, too, smells of alcohol, with the faintest hint of jet – trust me, I know from experience, that smell doesn't fade even hours later.

"I'm…well, I'm…" I fake a few stammers, just for accentuation. "…I was just passing through, visiting a friend. I must have been…to…to the wrong house."

"You're right! Well, it's no matter." He turns to his lackeys. "Father will be so proud when he sees the stash I've managed to assemble for him, on such a low budget, too." Yeah, there's the alcohol definitely loosening his lips for him. Of all the interrogators I've ever been privy to, Randall Wayne is by far the stupidest. It all makes sense now. Randall was hoarding stolen weapons as part of his stash. "And there's nothing you can do to stop me!" He pulls out a cigarette and lights it, blowing smoke into my face.

A fifth person walks in, a rifle slung across her leather-armoured shoulders, and a moving, shadowy mass in her hands. "Did you find anything, Elise?" Randall asks the newcomer.

"Just this damned cat," she grumbles, and places the shadow on the table in front of me. It uncurls itself to reveal a golden-brown kitten, who just rests on the table and stares back at me for a second, before curling again and closing his eyes. I allow myself a little smile: If Kaiser is here, then _he_ must not be very far behind. All going according to plan.

"Why the hell did you bring it inside?" Randall.

"It kept trying to bite my leg," she said, the lamplight highlighting her scowl. "Besides, if we leave it outside, you know it'll just be food for the mirelurks. It...could be useful."

"For _what?_ It's a _cat_ –"

 _"Stupid man!"_ I hear a deep, guttural growl from the door, moments before the man by the door screams, simultaneous with a loud thunk.

Randall turns, his eyes widening. The super mutant standing at the door holding a greatsword in one hand as if it were no heavier than a pen. He is eight feet tall and every ounce of his body simmering in prepared anger, is clearly not someone he had come here expecting to fuck with. The others in the room turn their guns and start firing away in the direction of the newcomer. The mutant just roars and swipes in their direction. I see Elise trip over something and fall to the ground, her rifle skittering from her hands and across the floor.

In this chaotic mess, I finally rip my bonds off, stand up, grab my gun, and reach for Randall Wayne. Pulling his trembling body tightly against mine, I press the simmering barrel of the plasma pistol into his temple, eliciting a very childlike yelp from him. I grin; it's these kind of moments I love best about this job.

"Leave here," the mutant says at the other two lackeys, his sword now touching Elise's back. One is cowering in the corner by the remains of a television, the other is kneeling behind the table, as if trying to make a brave last stand. "Drop your weapons, leave Atlantic City, and I'll forget this ever happened." He looks down at Elise, now on the floor, looking up. "You too."

Within seconds, all three have left their weapons on the ground and hesitantly moved. I'm glad the mutant chose that, instead of extinguishing their lives here and now. As I know entirely too well, this is something he could have very easily done.

"Please, whoever you – whoever you people are!" Randall pleads, squirming in my grip. "I have – I have money! Five hundred credits – that's what, ten thousand in bottle caps? It's no problem at all!"

"I don't want your money," I growl.

"What do you want then? I can give it to you! I promise!"

"This." Remembering my training, I find the proper spot on his neck, and press. I hear him gasp, his muscles tense, then loosen, and his body slides into unconsciousness. He'll be out for the better part of a day.

"Thanks, Kenji," I say, after I've laid Randall gently on the floor.

The super mutant just looks at me with sad eyes, letting his sword arm droop. "Zoe, you know well I don't like doing this," Kenji says softly. "Next time, we have to come up with a better plan. Not this – whatever this was."

"Sorry," I say, looking away. It hit me that yes, I'd been absurdly, incredibly stupid, rushing in here like that. I'd forced Kenji to have to come and support me. And I couldn't keep doing that.

Feeling the chilly night air blow on my skin, I adjust my hat and coat, and walk over to the weapons stash. I find the case which has our client's name scrawled on its surface, heft it over my shoulder, and walk outside.

"Come on Kaiser," Kenji says, finding him peacefully sleeping away on the table. The kitten leaps into Kenji's hands, and he perches him upon the mutant's shoulder.

We walk outside onto the dilapidated street, Kenji sets up a flare. As we walk away to the east, where our boat sits, the flare bursts, shooting a rocket into the air. That should catch the attention of the police guarding the bridge.

Really, we've been quite fortunate. For all the things the Waynes control, the most pertinent one for us isn't: the Atlantic City police. That's under the control of Valerie Pulaski, a relative of the Pulaskis of Long Beach, the Republic's most powerful family before the Waynes came along. The two families have been feuding for some years now, and the police have been a constant thorn in the side of the Waynes. Valerie sure won't have any trouble trying to indict Randall on possession of stolen items, and use him as leverage against her political rivals. In fact, we might have just handed her the biggest present of her career.

Looking ahead, at the brilliant electric radiance of the Atlantic Republic's capital, at the row of pre-War beachfront high-rises lit up like nuclear winter had never happened, I see once again why this city captures the dreams of the wasteland so well. A bright spotlight has been perched atop the tallest building, shooting a beam of light straight for the stars – that's the lighthouse.

But when you've been in a business dealing with the layer beneath the luminescence for as long as I have, you know how truly deep down the dirt and the corruption in Atlantic City extends.

I know for a fact that there are other dreams, better dreams, elsewhere.


	3. Atlantic City

Sitting on the dawnlit boardwalk, I gaze out at the rising sun, out there over the Atlantic Ocean. With the case delivered back to our joyous client, Kenji's gone home. He immediately fell asleep, and I too could feel the exhaustion overwhelming my body.

And damn, did I try to sleep. I lay in bed for what must have been half the night, tossing and turning. And all that happened was what Kenji had said to me replaying in my head on an endless loop: _Zoe, you know well I don't like doing this._

I couldn't sleep until I'd apologised to him. I couldn't bear to see Kenji hurt, not after everything he'd been through – even if he didn't like to talk about it much. And I wasn't about to wake him up, especially as his loud snoring rattled the house.

So now I'm here.

Somewhere to the north, out there, lies the infested, almost glowing cluster of ruined spires they like to call Nuked York. Thank whatever gods exist that I've never been there. Even the sea miles off the coast is death, thanks to the city's rivers– if they could be called _rivers_ anymore – and the fallout-strewn liquid toxin they spew into the bay. Having to circumnavigate this nautical hellscape – which necessitates sailing out of sight of the coast – is a huge reason why the run up past to the Commonwealth and parts nearby is such a treacherous one; most simply prefer to down to the far more lucrative south, past the Chesapeake Bay and the Capital Wasteland, down to Carolina and the Sunshine Wasteland.

And straight ahead…

Beyond the ocean, there must lie _something_ , yeah? I mean, I've seen the rotting maps and dusty globes, with those enigmatic black names like IRELAND and FRANCE and SPAIN and MOROCCO. And of course I've heard that bloody tale about that Mad King George of England – England, was it? – whose rule the old United States had revolted from something like five hundred years ago. I know these were all countries, once, just like America had been. But. Were they like us, slowly rebuilding from the ashes? Or – what if – they had miraculously survived the War utterly unscathed?

Few New Jerseyans I'd heard of had gone past the Commonwealth, and most of what they returned with were these – usually – dark and twisted tales about eldritch cults and ancient tribes and esoteric abominations, and islands spewing out smoke where the long night sky glows in all the colours of the rainbow, with only open ocean beyond. What truth lay in them, I don't know. And maybe I never will.

I turn away. Maybe it's just not my place to know.

* * *

I return home, to the waterside building at the edge of the neighbourhood that the city's people call Ducktown, as daylight starts to fill the street. Our office is on the first floor of the old house, next to the kitchen. Our living quarters are on the second. The woman who'd sold it to us – well, to Kenji, since I'd been about thirteen then – had made it her life's work refurbishing the place, even having found a fully functional fridge from somewhere.

I'm rather taken aback, even in my dulled state, to find that in the little entrée, there sits a shoulder-length blonde-haired woman, immaculately dressed in a blue garment and what I think is some kind of silver cloak. A leather satchel is slung across her body.

"Oh," I say, stopping dead in my tracks, "I'm sorry."

Odd. Not only does she just emanate an indescribably strange aura, someone dressed like her would seem to typically have a bodyguard, even just a hired gun. But then I look at her again, and something about her demeanour tells me she can take care of herself perfectly well.

"No," the woman replies, tilting her head up so that I can see her tightly smiling face. Her voice is almost ethereal. "I'm sorry."

She pulls out from _somewhere_ a golden pocket watch and flips it open, stylishly. There's an odd emblem etched on the back, a diagonal sword, blade pointed down, with what seems to be a diamond-shaped hole near the hilt.

She then looks back up at me. "Silly me, I was an hour early. You must be Miss Zoe Jackson," she says curtly.

"That's…me," I nod.

At this moment, Kenji, apparently having woken up from an equally poor night's sleep, groggily clambers downstairs, shaking the entire house a little. I'm afraid that our guest – whoever she is – is going to panic, flee, or otherwise instinctively revolt inside on seeing the super mutant.

Instead, she just smiles even more. "Ah, you must be the Kenji I have heard so much about."

He just looks at her with narrowed eyes, in the most distant, inquisitive stare of a sleep-deprived mutant.

She stands up, the folds of her cloak falling onto the floor. She looks down at me, her eyes a full head above mine, and I realise that her cloak could conceal a sword perfectly well. A sword. In the wasteland. What am I possibly thinking?

"Yes, I have done my research," she says, smirking.

* * *

"My name is…Coral," she says, taking sips from an ice-cold bottle of Nuka-Cola from our fridge, after we've all settled down in the office. "I come to this city as an envoy, acting on behalf of my queen."

"Your…queen," I say, trying to keep the obvious scepticism out of my voice. I haven't heard of any queens in New Jersey. But if this Coral is an ambassador, though, there are plenty of those to be found here. There are constantly rumours floating about about the Federation's ambassadors' antics or the mysteries of Old Light's delegation, and even the most minor settlements in South Jersey will always find time to send someone over from time to time, to gain the favour of one of the Republic's families.

"Yes, the Queen of Albany, from the north of here." She points to the emblem on the obverse of her pocket watch. "This is her sword, to which all Upstate New York kneels. In my queen's name, I am sent to New Jersey on a diplomatic envoy." She says the last two words with a slight scowl, as if New Jersey is far beneath her standards. "And my queen needs your help."

"What do you – I mean, what does she need us to do, exactly?" Well, all I can say is that today has become rather bizarre very quickly. I still can't be sure we're not being pranked, or being lured into a trap. Who would do such a thing? There are more than just a few in Atlantic City who have been on the receiving end of our clients before, and I wouldn't be surprised if one of them had traced back to us.

She pulls out an envelope from her satchel and places it on the table. The flap has been sealed with a purple wax seal, with the same sword emblazoned on it. Whoever these people are, I think, they really have gone the whole way. "This is a girl, very important in Albany, who has gone missing – she was last sighted near…Barnegat, I believe," she says. "We'd like to find her and bring her back home. Unfortunately, my duties as ambassador do not allow me time to investigate personally."

"Does your girl have a name?" I ask.

"Yes – Charlotte."

"Charlotte…?"

"Just Charlotte. You'll find all the information you need in there," she gestures at the envelope, "worded better than I can ever give you."

Swiftly, I open the envelope. There are two yellowed papers folded inside. One is a pencil sketch of this, about eleven-year-old girl – she looks remarkably like a younger version of me, with dark skin and messy, curled hair down to her shoulders. Her expression – at least in the drawing – is distant, a little anxious. What's her angle?

The other document is a letter. A cursory first glance tells me it's a typewritten copy of a letter from someone at the Albany court to the Royal Embassy to the Atlantic Republic, containing instructions to find this girl, Charlotte.

Coral pulls out the pocket watch and flips it open again. "Hm. See, I have spent too much time here already. I have a meeting with the President in one and a half hours," she says, placing it back away and beginning to stand up. "I have heard of you two as the greatest detectives in this city – almost a hundred percent case record, am I right? I assure you my queen will reward you greatly."

Kenji and I simultaneously glance at each other. He just shakes his head a little, confirming my exact thoughts. None of this makes any sense.

"I'm sorry," I say, folding the papers back into the envelope and pushing it back to her. "I can't accept this."

Coral freezes. "Oh, I'm sure you can," her face erupts in a distant, frightening smirk. "After all, I'm sure there are…others, yes, others interested in your business. For instance…the Scarlet Knights, perhaps? It would be most shameful indeed if someone unpleasant were to find out who you really are."

My mouth opens a little. I feel the cold sweat starting to form on my brow. How the hell did she find that out? I know Kenji is eyeing her down next to me, trying to use the intimidating stare he likes using so much, but no intimidation will work on this woman, not in the moment.

"And you, Kenji, you're afraid...what would you do if -"

"Stop!" I say. I don't want to hear any more.

"So," she turns to me, "I ask you again. Miss Jackson, do you accept this case?" She turns the envelope around and pushes it back towards me.

"Yes," I say, giving her a glare, and very gingerly, picking the envelope back up.

"Excellent," she says. "Once you've found her, bring her back to the Park Place Hotel. Our embassy is residing there." Coral helps herself to picking up the bottle of Nuka-Cola, then tips her hat to me. "Good day!"

As she walks out the front door rather loudly, I swear to myself that, before this is over, I will find out who this Coral really is. Because, as far as I care, _no one_ threatens Kenji.


	4. Long Beach

"I can take you to Long Beach, I'm headed up to New Asbury anyway" the boatman had told us. "Barnegat's just across the bridge there."

"That'll do," I'd nodded in acknowledgement. The boatman – whose name is Ken, I think – had eyed Kenji behind me suspiciously, as if the mutant's jaw would unhinge like a snake's and eat him whole, before hijacking his boat, filling it flush with explosives and driving it straight into the Atlantic City boardwalk.

But in the end, he'd let Kenji on. We'd had to pay double the price, but neither of us were about to risk our passage.

No, what Kenji had been most upset about was that Kaiser couldn't come on board. "I told you, no cats," the boatman had said, his frustration clearly mounting.

"Fine," I'd said, looking at Kenji with a glance that told him it'd be okay.

So we'd left Kaiser there, with a stockpile of food, and a reminder to the neighbours to check on him on occasion. He'd be able to take care of himself. He'd done it before.

"We should have just gone by the Parkway," Kenji had grumbled.

"And risk the bridge to Pleasantville? Come on, you know what they do to super mutants there."

So it is late that evening that I find myself here, having passed the outer wall of Atlantic City, and now leaning over the edge of the boat, staring at a billboard of that Vault-Tec boy plastered on the side of derelict hotel in whatever abandoned town this is. The boy is ubiquitous from the hundred thousand advertisements lining the Parkway. In this one, he's dressed in a top hat and a monocle, and pointing with a tilted cane at the words PASS GO IN VAULT 98!

"Come now," Kenji interjects from beside me, wearing a broad smile, trying in vain to cheer me up. "When was the last time we left Atlantic City? It'll be an adventure!"

"I don't want an adventure," I grumble. "I didn't even want this job." Besides, I'd had enough "adventure" for one life in my childhood.

In my childhood…

* * *

My mind takes me back to seven years ago.

I'm wet, panting in the rain, my mud-stained clothes clinging to my skin. A radroach comes from nowhere and takes a nibble at the pack of my ankle, but at this stage, I'm dead anyway if I can't find a settlement before nightfall. I know this road leads to a village – I think this road leads to a village.

Through the howling of the wind, I hear the raspy crackling of fires behind me. Shit, my twelve-year-old mind realises, they're burning the pines to try to smoke me out, or choke me to death – they don't care. Maybe I'd be better off turning back, returning to the Manor, returning to my old life.

But no, turning back just isn't an option. I remember what Nicole had told me, in frantic, confused words, with pleading eyes.

 _I've found something terrible…I think we're – the Knights, I mean – we're planning to do something...so horrible, I can't talk about it here. I'm afraid._

At first, I thought little of it, but the next morning, the Knights broke in and forcibly dragged her from our room. They claimed she was a Brotherhood spy in a "trial" that lasted less than two hours, before half a dozen of them took her out back and shot her – my partner in training – before my very eyes. I suppose they were trying to use her as an example for me. It doesn't really matter now, anyway.

By the very training the Scarlet Knights had been giving me the past four years of my life, trying to groom me and eleven others my age into the perfect guardians, the six Knights died, all of multiple gunshot wounds. I know all six of their names. Dansby. Janezich. Rodgers. Harris. Michaelson. Wilkes. I look at the nametag crumpled and grasped in my hand – NICOLE JACKSON – and I regret none of it.

Knowing they'd soon be after me, I packed what little belongings I had, and left the Manor behind for good, never finding out what exactly it was Nicole had learned.

Here, in the midst of the Pine Barrens, I hide behind a large tree trunk. The ground is springy, moist, and quickly turning to slush, and a slush I'm half-sure isn't radioactive.

I can't sit down, because as soon as I try, just to catch my breath, I hear a chorus of loud crunching noises around me, and I almost want to reflexively vomit in panic. I, too, have heard the tales of the Jersey Devil and the other strange creatures – deathclaws ten times normal size, strange human-plant monstrosities, the trees themselves growing tendrils and eating humans alive –

Something circles my ankle, and I feel everything give way under me. The ground itself shakes, and out the corner of my eye, I see

Suddenly, I hear a roar, and all goes black.

* * *

My eyelids snap open, and I gasp.

"Ah, you're not dead," a voice chuckles. "That's always nice."

"Are they gone?" I manage, between shallow breaths. I'm in a daylight-filled room, an unspinning fan on the ceiling, the walls covered with a somewhat grimy floral pattern. "Where am I?"

"I hope so. You're in Mays Landing."

I tilt my head slightly – it's a broadly grinning, youthful man, no older than maybe twenty-five. He is in what I recognise from the Knights' lessons is a medic's uniform, the shoulder emblazoned with the yellow-and-green outline of New Jersey, the seal of the Atlantic Republic.

"Someone found you unconscious and hypothermic out in the Barrens, about a mile south of town," the medic continues. "Hell of a ruckus, that was, when he showed up. Half the town came and tried to shoot him up." He chuckles. "You really should have been there. What's your name, by the way? We found this, curled up in your hand, but you can imagine…t." He shows me the crumpled namepatch: NICOLE JACKSON.

That is the question: what _is_ my name? My old name…the Knights had given it to me. It wouldn't do, not if I wanted a life for my own.

Someone has to remember Nicole.

"Jackson," I say. "My name's Jackson. Zoe. Zoe Jackson." Nicole had told me about a Zoe a lot, an imaginary companion she'd had. "Nicole was my sister," I finish explaining, "but…I…lost her."

He nods. "Sorry for probing. Whoever that was…fuck. We could still see the fires to the south three days later. Thank Atom that the Scarlet Knights are here for these people, even when we have to go back east."

I sigh.

If only he knew.

There's a loud, crackling knock at the door, and the medic goes to answer it. He opens it, then turns back at me. "Oh, here's the…per – er, the one who found you," he says.

The medic steps aside, a little nervously, to make way for a hulking Super Mutant, barely fitting through the jagged doorframe. I want to just dissolve into the bed, cease to exist, anything but to die at the hands of a mutant. I'd just come out of the frying pan – into _this_ –

My fears dissolve when he extends an open hand, with a little, curt smile.

"My name's Kenji," he says, in perhaps the gentlest voice I've ever heard.

* * *

"Zoe?" Kenji calls out to me.

My mind snaps back into the now. It's the next morning now, and the boat is pulling into the dockside of what seems to be a quaint seaside town.

Without thinking, I race up to him and embrace him. "I'm sorry," I tell him.

"For what?" he asks, gently hugging me back.

"For what happened in the Vent, for everything - just, everything."

"Ah," he smiles, "don't worry about it."

I follow him onto the dockside, away from the eyes of a quite bemused boatman.

This is Long Beach, the northernmost and the smallest of the Republic's great cities – and I have to give credit to the town for maintaining itself quite nicely. Inside the walls, it is almost as if the War had never happened here. Looking at it for the first time, the thought occurs to me that, despite all the corruption and all the politics, compared to some of what might lie out there, the Republic's not a terribly awful place to live.

Long Beach is the territory of the Truex family, which also happens to be the weakest of the five families. From what I hear, they try to keep to themselves, stay out of the cesspool of Atlantic City. Probably for their own benefit.

We're not going to be here for long – maybe just a little stopover for a drink. Barnegat, where we are supposed to look for Charlotte, is not far – just a crossing of the bridge and a little further.

So we duck into a little tavern, about a block inland. The Pharmacy, they call this place, judging by the quite ornate wooden sign with a painted red cross hanging outside. Inside. Kenji gets a few odd looks, but most of the others seem caught up in their own business. I suppose that, this far from Philadephia, the mutant war didn't affect people's fears all that much.

"What does the letter say?" Kenji asks, after we've found a table in a secluded corner and I've started working at a pint. It's alright, imported from New Babylon. The stuff from the Federation is better, but for whatever reason you can't find it here.

"Oh," I pull it out of my satchel and unfold the paper. "Yeah, it's not actually that helpful. It just says she was last sighted – er, yeah, six days ago now, at the Barnegat town hall, by a Republic soldier. She was with an older man, who had been wearing a, quote, 'a tattered brown jacket and a fedora.' It doesn't tell us who Charlotte is or why they care about her so much." I tuck the letter away and sigh. "Yeah, this whole shit is completely off."

"What, a Super Mutant in a tavern?" Kenji laughs, mostly to himself.

"Well – yes, but not that." I pause. "If this queen is so powerful, then why does she need us?"

Kenji had no answer, and neither did I.


	5. Beach Haven West

Kenji still has no answer hours later, as we reach the end of the bridge. As we pass the painted signs leading us to Manawkin and the Parkway, to our left, there lies some kid of pre-war waterfront development – rows after rows of crumbling seaside houses, their backs facing canals and lagoons choked with wrecked boats, detritus, and overgrowth. It's the perfect breeding ground for bloodbugs and mirelurks, and the perfect hideout for pirates, too.

But the green-and-yellow flag proudly flying ten feet above the skeleton of one particularly wrecked house – and the pair of Republic Army guards we now pass on patrol – tells me rather plainly that whatever might have once made a home here had been quite effectively cleared out.

Even with my eyes open, I can only imagine what this must have been like in the summertime before the War, an idyllic sun-baked waterfront paradise, light piercing through a sky clear of radioactive isotopes.

"These were summer homes once," Kenji explains, noting my interest in his characteristically gentle, deep voice, something like those of the lounge singers in Atlantic City hotels. "After they built the Garden State Parkway, New Yorkers would come down here to escape the city for a month."

"Ah," I say simply, silently wishing I could have that life.

"But this place…it…seems so familiar. The ocean, the boats…" Kenji continues, placing a hand to his head, and stopping in his tracks, his muscles looking ever tenser.

I help him to a seat at the side of the road. "You alright?" I ask.

He gingerly nods. "Just a little headache…I have medicine for it, in your bag." But I know from his tense tone that it is more than that. I can detect a faint, anxious tremor in his voice. And he's had these headaches before – the last one, admittedly, months ago, but still, it is not a new phenomenon.

I unsling it from my shoulder and hand it to him. "You sure you're alright?" I ask, as he fidgets through my things to find an otherwise empty cloth bag filled with a few blue-coloured capsules.

"What are you, my mother?" Kenji chuckles humourlessly, and then winces again. "No, I wish I knew who she was." From the bag, he takes two of the capsules between his fingers and places them down his throat. After a few seconds, he exhales. "Ah, that's better."

"Good," I smile a little. "That's good." But those words – _No, I wish I knew_ – they still replay in my mind.

"Fuck," he grumbles, slowly standing up on unsteady feet. "These things are hard to come by."

"This isn't the first time I've seen you have these headaches," I say. "You're sure you're fine?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's perfectly alright. Just a mutant thing," he chuckles nervously, as he hands the bag back to me and we slowly start walking in the direction of Manahawkin again, "just a mutant thing."

"You can trust me, Kenji. I'll help, whatever it is."

"It's…oh, fine, you're never going you give up, are you?" he cracks a smile.

I can't help but laugh back. "You know me."

"I looked at those summer homes, and I felt…well, I've gotten that same feeling before. It's like I'm on the verge of remembering something big, something from before the War…but then all I see is the sensation of being pulled out of that damned vat of FEV in eighty-seven, and then the grenade launcher they gave me." He pauses. "This time, it was almost as if I could remember my mother's name...then, nope." He pauses for a second, then looks down sadly. "For fuck's sake, how do I even know my name is Kenji?

"It was on the piece of paper in your pocket," I remind him of what I've heard a thousand times. He pulls it from the pocket of the coat he's now wearing – a little piece of white paper with the boldfaced type: KENJI G. My guess was always that it was a shard of a pre-war identification paper. But as for what the G meant, I hadn't the slightest damn clue, and more importantly, neither did he.

"But what if it isn't?" Kenji asks, sadly.

"What else could it be?" I say. "I'll help you find out, whatever it is. Let's just do this job first?"

He smiles, and nods.

And I put my hand on his back, and we walk on together.

* * *

A minute later, "Hey, you two!" I hear a shrill cry from behind me. I turn round to see a pair of youthful men, rifles in hand, racing towards us, the rear of the pair wearing sunglasses. They are in plain leather armour, indicating they are local militia, not the Republic Army. I tense a little, my hand instinctively drifting to my plasma rifle's holster at my belt – these locals simply cannot be trusted.

"Hey, aren't you those detectives from Great Lanta?" the one in the front asks, coming to a halt not two feet from my face.

The other one pokes him in the back with the back end of his gun. "No, don't," I hear him whisper – or, rather, fail at doing so – in his colleague's ear. "No one from there calls it Great Lanta unless you want a slap in the face."

"He's right," I interject, seeing the surprised looks on their faces. "Now, what do you want? If you don't mind, we're on business, so could you make it quick?" I assume that Kenji's hulking form behind me only makes my words have added effect.

"Right," the first of the two says, gulping. "My name is Andrew...yeah, Andrew. And this is Paul." The second waves on cue. "We're from Manahawkin, just down the road – you must have heard of us? We've…well, let's just say..."

"We've heard of you," Paul fills in for him.

"How?" I frown. I'm not at all sure if I like this.

"Well," Andrew says, "there was this trader who passed by here a day ago…a gun dealer…he spoke quite highly about a black girl and a super mutant who got his business back for him from Randall Wayne. Fucking _Randall Wayne!_ " Andrew laughs quite obnoxiously, and looks at me with shimmering eyes of adoration. "And if you could do that, you could help us."

"Look," Paul says after this, "Manahawkin has a problem."

"Listen," I reply. "Whatever it is, I'd absolutely love to help. But we've got to get to Barnegat as soon as possible. I told you already, we're on a job."

"Barnegat…are you trying to find a girl?" Andrew asks eagerly.

My eyebrows arch, and I feel a little chill on the back of my neck. "Yes...yes, we are."

"You're not the only ones," Paul says, licking his lips, staring dead ahead at me. "Three others have come through our town in the past two days asking the same questions about Barnegat. Two neuf-trois and this mercenary character. Said he was from Timbuktu."

"What the fuck do the neuf-trois want with this girl?" I ask, more thinking aloud than anything else. The neuf-trois, which I'd been told translated to "nine-three," are the tribal remnants of the inhabitants of what had once been Vault 93, from up north, near a town called Freehold. They'd become dominant in that part of Jersey, becoming a nuisance to Federation and Republic both. And Timbuktu was a trading town out west, along the Turnpike. What people from either of them were doing this far south or east utterly baffles me.

"Beats me," Andrew replies, shrugging his shoulders, and taking his sunglasses off completely to reveal a pair of jumpy hazel eyes. "With your talent, it won't take long, I promise! And if you help us, we can help you back."

Still, I know that this Manahawkin thing is just a distraction. I am unsure what help they could possibly provide; the Republic, if nothing else, does a damned good job of keeping the Parkway safe, at least as far north as New Asbury.

"Take it," Kenji whispers in my ear. "You know you want to know. Besides…trust me, these people truly need help. I've seen enough people in my life who need help, and even if they are completely different from whom they say they are, they need help."

I look at the pair. Andrew is looking at us with equal parts eagerness and desperation, and Paul – despite his otherwise laconic and deadpan deamanour behind the sunglasses – has brought his hand to his mouth, and is now gently chewing on his nails.

"Alright," I say, exhaling. "We'll help you."

"You will?" Andrew's eyes twinkle like crystalline stars. "Thank you!"


	6. Manahawkin

"So, er, what's the problem, exactly?" I ask after we've begun walking again.

Kenji trails the other two, and Andrew can't help but look back occasionally with slight, jumpy nervousness. Paul just stares dead ahead. I wonder if either of these two were old enough to have fought in the Mutant Wars. Paul's clearly the older, more seasoned of the pair, but Andrew looks at Kenji with the eyes of someone who has clearly seen other, less civilised mutants do far, far more aggressive things.

"Our mayor…well, we found him...dead," Paul says, flatly and bluntly.

"So you want us to figure out what happened," Kenji finishes for me.

"Er…yes, yes, we would," Andrew replies, chuckling nervously. For someone talking about the death of someone presumably rather important, he seems quite out of touch. "Come on, let me show you. It is easier than to explain."

They lead us into town. As we approach, Manahawkin looks like a smaller, inland version of Long Beach – a collection of refurbished pre-War houses lining the side of the road. Signs guide passersby to the Parkway, conveniently straight through the town centre.

There's a crater visible to our left, maybe a few thousand feet away from the road, walled off with the remnants of old billboards.

"A nuke landed there," Andrew explains. "They say it was headed for Great – er, Atlantic City, but it missed and landed straight in er – what's that town called again?"

"Mayetta," Paul fills him in.

"Yeah, Mayetta. Anyway, it was a damn miracle for us."

I nod.

We pass a pair of Republic Army soldiers on either side of the road – marking the entrance to town – and a pair of women pass by, giving Andrew - not Kenji this time - odd looks, and whispering at each other.

"So the body's in the town hall," Paul says. "We haven't moved it yet. I presume you'll want to see it."

"Right away," I gesture.

I spare a glance at Kenji. He just shrugs.

* * *

The town hall, I realised, had in fact been an elementary school before the War. No one had bothered removing the sign out front, instead opting to paint MANAHAWKIN TOWN HALL over it in bright red. There were a number of rusting relics of parked cars still in the lot as we came nearer.

The second thing I noticed was the green-and-yellow Atlantic Republic flag flying proudly from the building's roof.

The third thing I noticed were the pair of Republic Army soldiers outside the building, arguing profusely with the pair of what appeared to be local guards. "If it weren't for us," I hear one of the Republic soldiers say as I come into earshot, "a mutie would be shitting out all your organs by now. Who protects you from the Barrens? Who keeps the power running? Who keeps the Parkway smoothly flowing so that your town can even exist? Ma-ha-naw-kin needs the Republic."

"Oh, stop jacking off to yourself," one of the locals replies. "And what about us, huh? Now we're just police. We're not more than babysitters while you take all our freedoms away."

"We are _not_ taking your freedoms away, and the least you could do is show some fucking gratitude."

The second local taps his comrade on the shoulder and points in our direction. "Why," he says in a cutesy mocking voice, "if it isn't little Andy Caulkins! Go in, you're wanted inside. Hey, it's robably your Republic fuckbuddies again."

"Fuck off, Herbert," Paul spits, in the most emotion I'd seen from him yet.

"You have a problem?" Kenji asks, after we've passed the pack there, all four pairs of eyes fixed on Kenji, and a slightly flushed Andrew holds the door open for us.

"Er…let's just say that Andrew is known as one of the biggest Republic supporters in town," Paul explains, "and the Republic, suffice to say, has some opposition here. Especially amongst the others in the town militia."

* * *

Andrew leads us down a dank, slightly decayed corridor, and reaches a room – appropriately, marked as the principal's office – and shows us in.

Two militia members are sifting through papers, while a Republic soldier is calmly leaning against the wall, a smoking cigarette propped in his mouth and a rifle slung vertically behind her right shoulder.

In the plush chair behind the desk, an old man's body is slumped over. A jagged hole is visible in his temple, from which congealed blood has poured out, vertically straight down onto the ground. Judging from his skin colour and his general stiffness, he must have died some time ago – yesterday, perhaps. But he way the bullet - he must have been shot from below. No killer would shoot from that angle.

Well, now is the time to get to work.

I step forward. In a sick, twisted way, I feel somewhat glad they brought me here, and I feel a little smile inside. Even in Atlantic City, mysterious deaths are far from common – or, at least, I don't particularly hear about them. Most of the ones that do happen go straight to the police. The skills about judging dead bodies they taught me – us – back at that place – the Manor – are not skills I get to use very often. It's been six months the last, entirely too long.

"Ah, you're finally here," the Republic soldier says, abruptly lurching forward and turning to face us. "Look, Caulkins, I know who you are, and I really don't want to have to do this." There is genuine sadness in her words. "But duty comes first, and unless we do find something, I'm sorry, I'm afraid we'll have to take you back to Long Beach for trial."

"Don't worry, we've brought someone, Sergeant Harrison," Andrew says, almost with resignation. He gestures at me. Shit. "She can prove our innocence."

"A…girl," Harrison says, dryly. "What can she do?"

"Zoe Jackson, the famous detective?"

She bats a quick eye at me. "Never heard of her."

"Well…just trust me, she's famous."

"If you say so." I can hear Sergeant Harrison verbally rolling her eyes.

"Wait," I interrupt, turning to Andrew. "Your innocence?"

"Well, er, we were…kind of...on station here…at the time of the death."

"So you want us to help you because you'll be blamed for the mayor's death if you can't prove otherwise," I say.

"Yes!" Andrew says.

"Idiots," I mutter under my breath. I couldn't believe I'd come all this way for _this_. But, then again, Kenji had been right. This pair did really need our help, and stupidity should never come in the way of the truth.

The two other militia members vacate the room, both taking turns to look funny at Kenji as they walk out the door. The mutant turns away – I think seeing the body like this is too much for his poor soul. Hm, I'll have to make up to him for that someday.

"What happened, exactly?" I ask.

"We were standing outside the front doors," Paul says. "And then we heard a loud gunshot from inside. We come here, find the door open and the mayor slumped over dead – exactly like that. We tried to save him, but...it was too late."

"And nothing else?"

"Exactly like that. Nothing else." Hm. Is it just me, or is skin slightly orange-hued? As is Andrew? Outside, in the isotope-tinged sunlight, it had just looked like a tan – it is the height of summer, after all, but inside, here, in this light, it's easier to discern.

I walk closer to the body, and note the gun fallen to the floor, straight below where the mayor's dead hand rests, limply. I look back at the hole on the head – it's the perfect angle. It looks like suicide.

I note the stack of papers on one corner of the desk, which I'd seen the two locals just looking through. The mayor quite licked to write shit down, I notice. And this seemed to be a record of the days immediately before his death.

The one on top, most prominent, is scrawled in large letters: REPUBLIC ARMY, with a large X violently stricken through it. Hm. Intriguing. I sort through the stack of papers. To those two locals who had just left, they probably mean nothing. But, knowing what I know, as I read them, my eyes open.

I look up, back at the waiting crowd at the back of the room. "Did he know who was on guard?"

"Of course," Andrew says. "Mayor Thompson knew everyone in the town militia on a first-name basis."

"Alright then. It's a suicide," I decide. "These two are innocent."

"How do you know?" Harrison squints at me.

"First of all, the angle of the gun - he must have shot himself from below." I paused. "Read these notes, if you can," I continue. "The mayor's wife died a few months ago – you can see here, December thirteenth, twenty-two eighty-six, his speech at the funeral. He's been depressed since then. The third one, here, is a note to his wife – dated from April of this year."

"So?" Harrison comes closer to me and squints.

"But look what he hated above anything else. The Republic. It only makes sense that, in his final goodbye to the world, he'd try to discredit the one man in town who'd most vocally support the Republic – and maybe, his successor would end the Republic's rule here."

Harrison nods, speechless, clearly impressed.

* * *

"I can't believe none of those assholes could figure it out," Andrew says, once we're back outside. "That was amazing!"

"It only takes a little filling of the gaps," I respond, "and in a case like this, few people are willing to do that. Of course, they'll have to double check. Those notes might be plants. Who knows? They can't do anything until they know for sure. But at least you're reprieved for now."

"Well, in any case, thank you!" Andrew says again.

"Now, I said I'd help you," Paul says, handing me an object that I never thought I'd be able to touch in my life. "I've had this for a while," he says, "no use for it now. Bad memories, see. But you – you look like someone who'd need it."

"Is this…a…Pip-Boy?" I gape.

"It is," Paul nods.

I look at Kenji. He nods, encouragingly. I slip it on my wrist – it fits perfectly!

"Looks good on you, Zoe," Paul says. "Now, head out of town that way." He points down further down the road we'd come into town on, roughly westward. "You'll hit the Parkway in about a quarter mile. And it's easy enough to get anywhere from there. Barnegat's only a short walk north."


	7. Barnegat

I manage to spend the entirety of the otherwise quite short journey to Barnegat, barely paying attention to the Parkway around me, fiddling with the Pip-Boy 3000 Mark IV. It's in seemingly mint condition, save for a few scratches here and there, and the fact that someone has carved little, blocky numbers _98_ vertically into the dark tan Bakelite left of the screen. There are also little red splotches staining the device's underside – dried blood?

After running my hand over the glass-smooth surface for a good ten minutes, I start fiddling with the dial. I grope my way through the endless succession of electric green LCD menus. I manage to turn the light on and off. Then there are the number of menus labelled strange things like _Inventory_ and _Statistics_ which seem to be of no relevance to anyone living in a Vault, or really, anyone in general.

My stomach heaves a second later. My mind trails a second behind, as I realise that what I have - this must have been one of those _special_ Pip-Boys then.

"Kenji," I look up, broadly smiling, breathing heavily, "I think this…I think this belonged to an adventurer once. It's got all these weird menus…you know the stories, yeah?"

"Oh?" Kenji tilts his head. "Yeah, yeah I do."

"Whose do you think this could have been?" I look down, mulling the shape of my Japanese shoes and the age-cracked asphalt of the road.

Vault 98…I knew no one from there. What was Vault 98, anyway? Toms River, yeah – they kept mostly to themselves, didn't they?

"Check the map?" Kenji suggests, peering over my shoulder.

"Right." Rubbing the dial, I manage to reach _Map_ within seconds.

I am greeted by the electric-green outline of what seems to be…well, I stare it for a few minutes, to no avail. I don't know pre-War geography well enough at all.

"Philadelphia," Kenji says.

I scroll through the array of little square icons littering the map, seeing names like _Bryn Mawr_ and _West Philadelphia_ and _University of Pennsylvania_ and _Levittown_ , places on the far side of the Delaware River in lands no New Jerseyan dares trod, in fear of becoming tomorrow's mutant feast.

There are some more familiar things – _Vault 90_ , that's Timbuktu, right? And _Camden_ – that makes me shudder a little. Mutants aside, no one goes to Camden and comes out alive. _No one_.

There doesn't seem to be a single reference to mutants. Perhaps, whoever's this had been had gone there in a time before the mutants had come?

For another matter, how did those guards in Manahawkin get it?

"Hey, Zoe, watch it," Kenji says, moments before I smash my face into a great dark mass.

I blink, and find myself sprawled on my back and elbows on the ground, staring up into a lamppost, on what seems to me a main street, not a derelict building in sight in the row of concrete-walled reclaimed shops. Kenji has his hand covering his mouth and giggles softly to himself. And I spin my head in a semicircle to see half a dozen others staring right at me.

"Well, fuck," I mutter under my breath. "Welcome to Barnegat."

* * *

Kenji picks me up and hauls me inside the nearest building. "Get inside, before you do that again," he says before I can protest. Not that I want to protest, already feeling my cheeks flush. "Though I must say," he chuckles softly, "it was terribly amusing."

"Piss off."

I stand up, taking stock of my surroundings. I'm in a dim, electric-lit room in what appears to be some kind of tavern. It's midday, so naturally, the place is empty, except for an old, scruffy woman standing behind the counter.

"Are you looking for the girl?" she asks, alternating angered glances between Kenji and me.

"Er…yes," I respond.

"She's not here," she snaps. "Get out."

"Er...what?"

I look her over. She's wearing leather armour – is she expecting someone? Are we that someone? And her surprisingly somewhat pale skin – she's definitely spent some time underground, then – is slightly orange-tinted – just like Paul and Andrew. Hm. I wondered if there was a coincidence there?

She pulls a shotgun from behind the bar and points it dead level at us. "Get out. I mean it. And stop looking. Now. Unless you want to disappear forever."

* * *

"What the fuck was she on about?" I ask, more to myself to Kenji, as we stumble back outside. I raise my Pip-Boy arm to above my eyes to stop the high noon sunlight from almost blinding me.

"I don't know," Kenji shrugs. "Maybe it was me."

I place my hand over his. "It wasn't you," I reassure.

"Are you sure?" he asks.

"Yes. She knew someone was coming. The way she was prepared like that…she's definitely involved with them. But how?"

"Right." Kenji stops by the edge of the pavement. There is an outlet of pre-War chain Radaburger across the street, which seems to have been reopened – at least if the lit neon sign is any indication. There are a few street criers here and about, advertising repairs, and even a casino down in Long Beach. And someone announcing that a caravan from heading from Atlantic City has just arrived in town.

"So," I exhale. "The letter said…she'd last been seen by the soldiers at the town hall…so let's start there?"

* * *

The town hall had been a little pre-War chapel, and according to instructions from a passerby, getting there requires us to cross back on a remarkably sturdy bridge over the Parkway. It is a rather unimpressive wood-panelled building sheltered behind a mass of trees – yeah, actual trees, just like the endless rows of them lining the sides of the Parkway, and lush grass, greener than Kenji's eyes – and as I look around, the radiation seems to have almost intensified nature's bright green here, rather than diminishing it to a ruined tan.

"You live in a garden," Kenji had told me once. "I remember Pennsylvania. It really is a wasteland. There's not a living thing in sight, except for mutants and mutants everywhere. When you're surrounded by nothing but faded hues of grey and tan and brown, your life is hopeless. But the moment I crossed the river and set food in New Jersey…" He sighed. "I knew this place was different."

Under the green-and-yellow banner of the Republic, flying from a spire atop the church, there stands precisely no one in front of the door. Something has been drawn shut on the other side of the windows.

"Hm," Kenji says, kicking at the ground. "Shouldn't there be someone here? Did something get them?"

"They might be inside," I suggest, and slowly, push open the creaky wooden door, into a dark interior.

* * *

I use my new Pip-Boy's light for the first time, bathing the interior in a sea of pale white. I want to smile at the near complete serenity of lighting a near. The air is clean – this building had been used recently. So why was it empty? There should have been at least _someone_ here.

Kenji immediately gasps.

Within a second, I realise why. On the floor, by the door, lie sprawled a pair of bodies, both in Republic Army uniforms. One is a young, red-headed woman, and the other a dark-skinned young man. A single ragged bullet hole adorns of each their torsos. They can't have died that long ago, or someone would have discovered them by now.

"I think…these were the guards we were looking for," I put my hand to my mouth. I glance at Kenji, who looks like he's about to puke.

I hear raspy breathing. I hold my breath, and kneel. I see the man's chest rising erratically, almost tentatively.

"Kenji, go get help," I say, rather automatically. "He's still alive. If we get him to a medic now, I think he'll live."

* * *

The man regains consciousness not long after nightfall, in a Republic Army medical tent, located just off the Parkway in what had once been a car park. It's not much, but with the Autodoc they had, the army doctors – at least, I think that's what they were – had been able to extract the bullet – fortunately, it hadn't hit anything crucial, and the damage had been from. Meanwhile, Kenji, I, and a couple others had watched from the electric-lit bedside. I'm not entirely sure why the Army allowed us to stay, but I guess they'd been grateful we'd helped them recover one of their own.

If this – whatever this was – had happened to me, I'd have fully expected to die. I breathed a silent thank you in relief to whoever might have been looking out for us.

This man's name, it turns out, is Irving. After getting over the initial shock of realising he'd be attending his partner's funeral – Bethany, her name had been – he seemed to ultimately take the news with some level of resigned acceptance. I'd wondered what Bethany's story had been - where she'd come from, who her family had been, what she'd wanted to do in life. And with a tinge of sadness, I'd realised I'd never know.

I'd stopped myself then. I was on a job, and I couldn't do that.

Anyway, Irving had been from Long Beach, born and raised, and had been stationed in Barnegat on patrol duties for the last three months. Ever since the Barnegat local militia had been disbanded after a mutiny over a pay dispute three years ago, he'd explained to me, the Republic Army had been handling policing duties here. It had been necessary, too; the town back then had been under constant attack by wildlife from the Barrens just outside, but the Army had solved that problem.

So there he'd been, guarding the town hall and the mayor alongside Bethany, and then they'd come.

They had been four in leather armour, two young men and one young woman, armed with rifles – and another one, a scragglier-looking older man with what seemed to be a plasma weapon of some kind. They'd also all had notably orange-tinted skin, and had demanded to see the mayor.

They'd corralled Bethany and him inside, and shut the curtains to block out the outside sunlight, using little portable lights – that seemed identical to mine – for reasons Irving couldn't quite comprehend. The older man and the young woman had gone further in, while the other two had lined Bethany and him against the wall and shot them.

Irving hadn't died immediately. He'd played dead instead, steadily losing consciousness from the blood loss. But, just on the brink of passing out, he'd heard where they'd been going.

"I remember it clearly. I heard the mayor ask what they wanted. And then the woman saying, 'Shut the fuck up,' and then something about not having time to waste – and then, 'Come on, now back to Forked River.'"


	8. Ocean Township

"We've got to get her back!" Irving exclaims, before promptly collapsing back into the comfort of his bed.

"Whoever these people are, they can't have gone far," one of the soldiers points out. "We're in the edge of the Barrens, and the only real route through here is the Parkway, which we guard anyway. The mayor will be completely safe, don't worry."

I hear the soft thud of the tent flap opening, followed by a succession of steady, hurried bootsteps. I turn, to see a scraggly, rather tanned man walking in, an air of nobility despite his Army fatigues. It takes no effort to pick him out as an army officer.

"I'm told," he grunts, "that the mayor of this dump has been abducted."

"Er," said the soldier who just spoke. "Yes, sir, she did. She was, I mean."

He next looks judgingly in our direction. I see his eyes shimmer – in recognition? "And why the _fuck_ are a teenage girl and a mutie standing in my camp?"

"What are you -" I start to say, starting to raise my fist, before Kenji puts his hand on my shoulder, stopping me.

"They were the ones who found him and Corporal Brennan, sir," the soldier replies.

"Really," he says, disbelievingly. "You two," he points at us, "come with me."

* * *

We are led to the outskirts of the little military camp, where two other officer-looking people are standing, both looking at us nervously.

"Right," the general turns around and says with the tone of a displeased parent. "As for you two, I know who you are."

"What are you talking about?" I respond.

His eyes flare up, and I take a step backwards. "You two are the little shits who humiliated my nephew. Yes, don't think the news hasn't reached out this far." It takes my mind a second to realise what he's talking about. "It's really quite lucky for me that I happened to be passing through here. I really should just have you arrested and sent back to the capital for trial. That's what Randall wants."

He pauses, as I feel my heart pounding. I can see in his brown eyes how much he loathes our very existence.

"Get the hell out of here. Now. If I ever see you in this town again, I will have you shot on sight."

"But it's nighttime," Kenji objects.

"I don't care, you mutie piece of shit. Do you want me to have you shot instead? You should have been dead ten years ago, lying in a pile. That's all your kind deserves for what you did to us."

For that, I want to take the energy gun from my belt and slam it into his throat until it burns clean through. I don't give a shit who he is, if he's a general, or if he's the fucking President.

But I stare back into his eyes - and I can't. I just can't. Instead, "Ah," I say, "alright…we won't be any trouble." Without a second thought, I turn and flee.

"I'm sorry," I tell Kenji, after we've reached a safe distance, his shoulders slumped in – I'm not quite sure what. "I let him do that to you. I shouldn't have."

"No, Zoe, it's fine," he says. "Besides, it's far from the first time I've been talked to like that. You know this." He smiles a little, almost sadly. "Doing anything would have just ended with both of us dead, anyway."

I nod.

"What do you suppose we do now then?" I ask, about ten seconds later, as we pass the sign marking the ramp guiding pre-War drivers to the northbound Garden State Parkway.

"You already know the answer," Kenji chuckles, seemingly unfazed by it at all.

"Go to Forked River?" I wink at him, trying to hide the fact that my stomach is still lurching. "Yeah."

* * *

As soon as I step back on the Parkway, my worries fade. Of course the Parkway wouldn't be dark - there's an electric light strung up every few hundred feet, helping travelers along. A pack of brahmins is plying its way in our direction, presumably returning uproad from one of the Republic towns. I feel a tinge of pity for the poor sod who gets stuck cleaning up their shit.I look up, at this summer night's array of constellations, twinkling through tired air as if taunting this insignificant world without a care in the universe. Wouldn't it be nice to get lost up there, someday?

And then my sight falls back down to Earth, and see the faces of the two Army guards about a hundred feet staring back at us rather oddly, and my find once again sees the sheer hatred in that general's eyes, and I can feel the weight of my organs again.

"I've heard of that fuck," Kenji says, distracting me.

"Er...oh?" I turn to look at him.

"Yeah, Michael Wayne. Rumour has it he wanted the President's job eight years ago, but their father gave it to his younger brother Sullivan instead. Sometime after that, Sullivan reassigned Michael out here. There was a bit of a scandal surrounding it, everyone was talking about it for a while. You were too young to remember back then."

"Ah, that explains it," I nod. "And – his nephew…?" I think about this for half a second, letting my mind piece things together. "Does Randall dislike his father? He's come to Michael for help?"

"That would make sense." Kenji pauses, looking somewhat tense. "Zoe, even though he was, as we used to say, reassigned to Antarctica, he's still responsible for the Army in the entire northern region. I do suspect that won't be the last we see of him."

"What's an Antarctica?" I ask, squinting. "Oh, yeah, that's that place on the bottom of the globe, right?" I try to recall the sparse stories I've read of the lands down there. "Nothing but ice and penguins? And the mountains of madness, right?"

"It's…" It's Kenji's turn to sigh and shake his head. "Ah, never you mind."

* * *

I fiddle some more with the Pip-Boy. I manage to reach the _Radio_ tab. I hit the dial by accident, and I immediately wince, as from somewhere, I'm blasted with someone singing loudly in – I think it's French?

"Oh, Edith," Kenji sighs happily, and to my great disbelief, starts singing along. _"Je vois la vie en rose…"_

I've heard French maybe twice in my life, but I can be damn sure this is what it sounds like – lyrical, truly, captivatingly beautiful, like something from another world. I knew what they called that world, too: FRANCE. Just another one of a hundred bolded black words printed across pre-War maps, completely meaningless to us.

I look back at the screen. _Radio Neuf-Trois_. Also French. Where on Earth could people in post-apocalyptic New Jersey possibly have learned French from?

And – "Wait," I ask Kenji. "You've heard this before?"

"Yeah," Kenji grins, "but I don't know where."

It is very clear that this is all I'm getting out of him tonight. He doesn't grab at his head this time. The music is pretty soothing, I will not lie, even if I don't know a damned word of this language.

I humour him, letting the music play on through the starry night.

* * *

The Forked River exit is blocked off by a squad of four Republic Army soldiers, some chatting amongst each other.

"Hold up, travellers," one of them says, "there's a Republic Army operation currently ongoing, and we're checking all entrants into the town."

I breathe in. I'll need a little luck for this one. "Is this to do with the mayor of Barnegat?" I ask.

He squints at me, looking suspiciously. He takes a glance at the group behind him, then back at Kenji.

"We came from Barnegat just now," I explain, deciding it best to leave out whom, precisely, we actually are. I can't rule out the possibility that the general has informed them about us. "In fact, I think we can help you people out."

A woman puts a hand on his shoulder and whispers something in his ear, and his muscles visibly relax.

"Er…alright," he shrugs. "Alright, head on in."

I exhale. That was, surprisingly, much, much easier than I had been expecting.

Wait.

Was it just me, or had that woman's skin been just the faintest bit orange?


	9. Forked River

"Wait, Ranjit," I hear the woman's voice say from behind me. "I want to go with them."

"Er…alright," the other soldier says, "go for it."

Footsteps rush up to us. I look at Kenji, his return glance confirming what I already know; this cannot possibly be good. But do we really have much of a choice?

Besides, if these mysterious orange-skinned people are in some sort of conspiracy, I might be able to learn a thing or two from this.

"I know who you are," she says once she catches up to us atop the peak of the ramp. "I know what happened between you and the general, and I want to protect you. My name's Sarah Wilkins…Corporal Wilkins, yeah."

"You know us?" I ask, sceptically.

"I've heard the rumours. Those stories about what you did to Randall Wayne himself…are they true?"

Slowly, I nod, putting on a smile. "Oh, yes."

Her face, dimly lit a faint tan-orange in the one electric light strung up from a nearby pole, lights in a puff of excitement. "That was great!" I can almost believe she's being genuine.

"So where are we going?" I ask at nobody in particular.

"This is why I wanted to come with you two. The Army got word of the incident an hour ago, and they're searching the whole town right now." Her voice softens to a hushed tone. "I'm not really supposed to talk about this, see, Zoe…but they've found a lead."

* * *

She leads us through the town – after Manahawkin and Barnegat, Forked River looks entirely familiar, a green-lined main street filled with shops only in being because of the Parkway. At this dead of night, the only illumination coming from the dim electric lamps and neon storefronts, all is entirely quiet, even the pairs of Army patrols, and the few dazed-looking citizens gawking at them. I hear the wind, and the faint, chirping claps of the crickets and radroaches in the grass.

We turn off on a side street, and pass a dilapidated subdevelopment seemingly in the process of being reconstructed, with some of the houses halfway torn apart and piles of wood and metal covering the street. A poorly lit sign rises from an endemic patch of overgrown weeds and grass ahead: FORKED RIVER MIDDLE SCHOOL. A half-crumbled building stands towering before us.

"The only people who've ever lived here are feral ghouls and the occasional raiders fleeing the Barrens," Wilkins explains. "But an hour ago Old Jenkins claimed he saw an odd group of four armed people escorting a middle-aged woman into that school. Now Old Jenkins isn't really the type of person that's known for seeing things straight, but…you know, it's better than nothing, yeah?"

"Yeah," I nod in half-sincere agreement.

On the far side of the car park, pair of Army soldiers stands watch bestride what seem to be the front doors, though they have long ago been torn off, perhaps carted away, perhaps just lost to the dusts of time.

"They're with the Army," Wilkins tells the two, "you don't have to worry." And they nod, one pausing for a second to gaze at Kenji, before she leads my friend and I inside.

I walk past some unoccupied desks and rusty lamps into a corridor that does not belong in New Jersey. Skeletons lie beside swinging, broken-down metal locker doors, the locks long ago rusted away. Their bones are uncleaned and untouched on the ground, as if I've stepped into a crypt.

"They're small," Kenji observes, before I see his hands go to his mouth, as if trying to hold in bile.

I feel an icy feeling creep up my spine. "Kenji…" my throat groans.

Further down, the rotting body of a giant ant that must have burrowed its way in covers half the corridor's width. Maybe it's just the sight, but I can almost smell the overwhelming death in the air. One soldier, a young man in ragged Army fatigues with tanned skin and a scar etched down the left side of his face, appears from beside me, rushing away. Seconds later, I hear him behind me, belching out.

"The Army's combing through the building right now," Wilkins says, seemingly entirely unfazed by all this. "There's something out back that you'll want to see. Come with me."

* * *

Wilkins leads us down to the right, past another, similar corridor. It's dark here – but the soldier pulls out some kind of fusion light. The sickly yellow light highlights a ceiling that has caved inwards halfway down, creating a pile of rubble we have to clumsily step over. She, of course, seems to be able to do it with absolute ease.

Two Army soldiers, one holding a lantern and both looking quite nauseated and pale-faced, climb out from a stairwell.

"They Army thinks they've gone underground, so they're searching the school fallout shelter," Wilkins explains, stopping in front of a singular standing door.

"That's silly," Kenji says, "those shelters have no exit. And surely those people haven't made their base here?"

"Exactly." Wilkins grins knowingly, "but these soldier types don't know that."

"Why aren't we going down there, then? We have to warn them!" I say, feeling the frustration start to well up in my stomach – a feeling quickly replaced by determination as, in that instant, the pieces of the puzzle starting to come together in my head, and I realise that, yes, I'd been entirely correct – about having made a colossal mistake.

My heart starts to race. I know I am about to pay, dearly.

"There is no time," Wilkins insists. "Come!"

She pushes at the door. The hinges snap and it falls away to the side. The light from her lantern reveals the cracked, weed-infested remains of what I think is the school gymnasium – at least, that's what the one standing basketball pole tells me.

A pair of radroaches are occupying in the opposite corner, one mounted atop the other. Each faint yet clearly audible crackling groan emanating from that corner makes me want to cringe. I gently try to push the three of us to the side of the room as far away from them as I can.

"Right," I stop her in the centre of the great room. "That's about enough. Who are you, exactly?"

"What do you mean?" she frowns.

"You're one of them. You all have that same, orange skin. And you're all from some…vault, aren't you? Let me guess…" I take a glance down at my Pip-Boy, where I can see the etchings. "Vault 98, perhaps? And you gave me this to track us, didn't you?"

Before Sarah Wilkins – if that is, in fact her real name – can respond. I hear a growl from the direction of the door.

"You people have hell to pay!"

A man now stands at the door, a pistol drawn at pointed at us. A cowboy hat sits atop his head, and a fabric poncho is draped over his shoulders. His unshaven face is filled with sheer determination - the sheer determination of a father who wants his child back, desperately.

"Oh," Sarah replies, almost spitting, "it's just you fool again. You should have just stayed in Timbuktu. You have no business here."

" _Where is she?"_ the newcomer growls, ignoring her words.

Then, his eyes fall upon Kenji.

"Oh, mutie piece of shit, you took her, didn't you?" he screams. "You took her! I swear gonna tear you apart, limb from limb!" And with that, he pounces on Kenji like a tiger. The radroaches flinch, and flutter away, out a broken window.

"No!" I shout, and reach for the gun at my belt. But before my hand can reach there, Amanda grabs that arm's shoulder and half-guides, half-shoves me away from Kenji and this mysterious newcomer, out the back door of the gymnasium, and into the deep dark of what seems to be a large, open field outside.

The stars are obscured, as a row of clouds passes by overhead.

* * *

"Please, let me go!" I plead, but to no avail.

"I know that man," Amanda says. "There is nothing you could have done. Now come on!" The sweetness has faded from her voice; there is no empathy here. The military training I recognise so well has kicked in. And it's definitely something more than what the Republic Army gives its conscripts.

My stomach ripples in fear and anger and desperation – I've made a huge mistake, and I know it. But no matter how hard I struggle, Amanda's grasp tightens, like an iron yoke around my shoulder.

I take in my surroundings. There is another building about a hundred feet away, on the far side of the field. And intermittent lights past some trees - I cannot really tell. A cacophony of odd animal noises starts filling the air - I shut my eyes, even my imagination failing me as to what might lay out here. Radroaches? No, worse. Radscorpions? Perhaps.

"Don't worry, Zoe, this is the part of town no one steps in," Wilkins says nonchalantly. "It'll be just you and me now…and my friends."

She stops, and lets me go – just in time for her light to die. I turn my head to the side, and against the backdrop of the dim fires and electric lights from a row of houses beyond, I see a number of silhouettes approaching me.

"Oh, poor Zoe Jackson, oh, we warned you not to look around," I hear a voice grumble from that direction. "But no, you had to go and fuck around in matters that don't concern you."

A torch is lit, and I find myself staring into the faces of a half dozen people in leather armour, brandishing rifles, pointing at me with rifles and fiery eyes both – all with those same orange faces.

"You didn't get the mutant?" one of them asks: an elderly woman, her face twisted into a seemingly permanent scowl.

"He's not important," Wilkins waves her hand dismissively. "Plus, he's distracted brawling it out with that mercenary idiot from Timbuktu. They're both distracted, we can get out of this dump."

"Fine," the woman nods, turning her shadowed eyes me. "We have the snoop, and that's all that matters,"

I resign myself to my fate. At least, maybe I'll get to see the inside of a Vault. I've always kind of wanted to. Fuck, I hate irony.

"Give us your weapons now," Sarah Wilkins demands of me, a broad, maniacal smile forming on her face.

I sigh, and raise my hands, letting them feel me down and taking my energy weapon from me.

I can only hope Kenji's alright.


	10. Berkeley

They don't talk to me as they lead me out of town along some back road, entering a patch of long-abandoned buildings. My captors' torches illuminate patches of overgrowth endemic through the entire area. The strange noises from the trees and fields continue from around me. All I know is that we've left Forked River behind, headed – I think headed northwards.

If there's anything about being captured and having your hands helplessly restrained behind you, it's that, once you come to terms to your situation and resign yourself to the fact that you're no longer in control, you now suddenly have plenty of time to think, and few real distractions.

Feeling the smooth roughness of the plastic cuffs they've used to bind my wrists, I can only curse myself. My childhood training should have kicked in. I should have been able to easily throw off my attackers with some well-placed CQC – oh yeah, we were also taught plenty of odd-sounding words like that – and made a run for it. Yet that woman – she's still walking next to me, her joyful greeting replaced by flat, militaristic determination – the moment she laid her hand on me, it had been impossible to get away. I guess, really, I could snap them off any moment – but it would be tantamount to suicide, being surrounded by these types.

In retrospect, I really don't know why I'd trusted her at all. No, I knew why. I'd just been particularly stupid.

It's been over a decade since you last saw a Scarlet Knight, I tell myself, don't be too hard on yourself. But Kenji is back there, fighting – whomever that had been. He'd been mentioned by those two militiamen back in Manahawkin – if they'd even been militiamen at all, that is, and not spies, informants, or agents of some sinister conspiracy. _A mercenary from Timbuktu._

In any case, it crosses my mind that this is exactly the sort of situation the Scarlet Knights like poking their heads in. This most peculiar collection of orange-skinned people who seem to have originated from Vault 98, who have made it as far south as Manahawkin – almost to the heartland of the Republic.

"What are you people doing?" I whisper aloud, not quite loud enough for my captors to hear and respond, but still enough for the night wind to carry my words.

This almost reminds me of those stories I've heard from up north, from the Commonwealth, of this strange and mysterious organisation who had been steadily replacing people with these "synths" - birthed and programmed in a lab. Supposedly, you couldn't trust anyone up there - even your neighbours, your closest friends, your family members, they could have all been replaced.

In any case, a loud crunching noise from somewhere ahead pushes this caravan of thoughts from my head. A large shadow moves in front to block our path, and the torches illuminate something that makes my eyes widen and my feet start taking shallow steps backwards.

"Deathclaw!" someone shouts.

As if they were robots following programmed instructions, six of the party automatically take formation in front, around the fearsome animal, which roars and flashes its claws, barely missing one of the men.

Wilkins's hand falls on my shoulder. "Oh Zoe," her voice coos in my ear, "you're not going anywhere." Out the corner of my eye, I see my plasma pistol at her belt. If I can just get to it – but I don't even consider that train of thought. It is an impossibility.

This poor creature, the monster who haunts every New Jerseyan child's nightmares, tries to lash out, but it only lasts a few agonising seconds of writhing before a hail of silenced bullets brings it down.

I swear I can hear a faint, sad whimper as it hits the ground, before the elderly woman who Wilkins had talked to before stands atop and fires another half a dozen rounds into its head, to unnecessarily ensure that it never opens its eyes again.

Wilkins lets go of me, and I just stand there, utterly dumbfounded by what I have just seen unfold before me.

"Continue."

Dawn is still hours away.

* * *

At first glance, New Berkeley is just like the other towns in this part of the coast: an otherwise unordinary settlement that's only started peacefully blossoming thanks to the Parkway – and, according to what little news I read tells me, thanks even more to Republic protection. I don't really know why someone put a sign marking the edge of town here, since my shoes keep finding in the asphalt ankle-deep potholes and foot-long chasms filled with fuzzy plants and the road obviously hasn't been used regularly in decades.

But nonetheless, there it is, lit in the flickering blue-orange of one of the fusion-powered torches my captors are using: WELCOME TO NEW BERKELEY, scrawled in white on a sheet of corrugated metal, a crudely Republic flag painted above it.

The faintest red and orange rays of a radiation-tinted sunrise are not even close to visible. Aside from the guards – who I don't doubt have long ago been infiltrated by these Vaulters, if we're passing through here – there is more likely than not no one awake in the entire town. I have no way to communicate and no one to communicate with, not here.

It is at this moment, walking down a dark, deserted, dilapidated street, when I swear I can hear the faintest sound of something whishing around in the wind, endlessly. In a different context it might even have been some sort of maddening white noise.

"What the fuck is that?" one of my captors says.

"It's nothing," the elderly woman leading the pack responds with an unconcerned bite. "Just keep moving, just another few hundred feet to the south entrance."

We turn right at the end of the road, onto another, equally dilapidated path which seems to lead down into some dark woods. The noise seems to grow in intensity, and I see one of the men in front of me bring his hand to cover his face, as if to protect it from air rushing towards him – as I feel something rushing straight towards me, too.

Then the lights come on above, as if aliens have descended from space to abduct us all. Really, knowing New Jersey, that wouldn't be entirely surprising.

No, what it _is_ is enough to send even more shivers down my spine. I've never seen a vertibird in my life, but I've heard enough – both from that hell years ago and from the rumours I'd heard since – to recognise one at first glance, even in the dark of night. And this is one, as it hovers over some kind of crumbling pre-War industrial complex.

The bird sprays an endless hail of loud gunfire in our direction. The elderly woman I hear get shot, I think in the legs, and she yelps and falls. The others pull out their own weapons and start firing back, but all they can muster seems to bounce harmlessly off the side of the bird.

It's the Scarlet Knights, I realise, my stomach twisting, it has to be, who else could it be? Of course they'd have gotten their hands on one of the things! It starts descending to a landing about thirty or forty feet in front of us. No one else would be interfering in these orange people's affairs. And if they get me and find me out, I'm fucked, I'm dead.

In that moment, offer a silent thank you to Kenji, for all he's done.

No, I decide, I have to run, and in the chaos I can probably make it decently far. I close my eyes and clench my fists, feeling the energy start to flow through my increasingly tense muscles. Now, with a concentrated burst of my hands, I first yelp – mostly from the fine plastic digging painfully into my wrists – and then snap the cuffs right off, hearing the pleasant sound of them breaking like a little, pathetic plastic twig.

Sarah Wilkins hears this happen, and turns to try to stop me. But before she can, I feel the side of my flat hand fly laterally into the side of her neck. In her subsequent daze, I manage to pull my gun from her belt, flip it into my grip, and use the barrel to push her down so her legs collapse and she falls to the ground.

The bird touches the ground, bouncing a little as it makes contact, and two figures step out onto the ground.

I breathe a sigh of relief as I come to the realisation that, whoever these are, they are decidedly _not_ Scarlet Knights. They bear precisely none of the distinctive red gear that I'm used to. Instead, these are a pair of hulking, walking tanks, covered from head to toe in impressive-looking, quite bulky steel-grey armour – power armour. Lights are embedded in their foreheads, a bit like those pre-War miners' helmets. Both are holding energy weapons – quite like me, only theirs are orders of magnitude bigger and stronger, as I quickly find out as they fire them back, pushing the Vaulters even further.

I've been backpedaling, in preparation for turning around and running, but a volley of whizzing laser shots flies past me, knocking yet another dead on his back with a shrill scream. Instead, I kneel to stay out of their sight as best I can, pinning my knees on Sarah Wilkins's groaning body. The others either have fallen, or have scattered and fled into the woods.

The trio advances towards me, and I put my gun down and raise my hands above my head. "Please!" I yell out. "I'm not one of them!"

Both their guns' barrels are very quickly rested in the air inches away from my face. "Then who are you?" a deep, feminine voice asks. I can't see her helmet – the lights shining down at me are virtually blinding.

"My name's Zoe Jackson!" I yell over the defeaning sound of the vertibird's rotors. Sarah groans again, and her body shakes, as if she's trying to throw me off, to no avail. "I'm from Atlantic City."

"Then what are you doing with these oranges?"

"These people captured me," I explain. I point down at the body pinned beneath my knees. "Well, she did."

I can see her stiffen. "You know about Vault 98," she says. It is not a question, it is a statement of fact. I want to explain, but before I can open my mouth, I am interrupted.

"Whatever this is, Paladin, make it quick," the second armoured figure says, "we've probably awoken half the damn town by now, and you can bet your ass the Republic's going to be all over this by dawn." His voice is the slightly worn one of a middle-aged male, and now, he looks through his visor straight at me. "There's been enough violence around Toms River already."

The other figure looks back and forth several times. "Alright," she says. She gestures at me. "Come on, get up, I'll need you to tell me everything when we get to base. We have no time to waste lollygagging around here." She looks down at Wilkins. "And bring her with you. She'll be…a valuable asset."

Shakily, I stand up and retrieve my weapon – and stow it at my belt, knowing that these two are watching me quite closely. Helped by one of the armoured figures, I pull Sarah's arm over my shoulders, and we carry her back to the vertibird.

The last thing I see before I am escorted on board is their emblem, almost glowing in the light – three gears and a pair of wings, a sword overlaid.


	11. Ocean County Airport

In a moment, I am plunged into near-complete darkness as the lights abruptly shut off with a click. Through the black, I hear the sound of straps being pulled over and buckled together atop something – I think that's that Wilkins woman's body being secured to something. They don't tell me what to do, so I almost lose my balance as the ground suddenly lurches upwards from beneath me.

"Who are you?" I try shouting, to little avail; on the inside, the incessant din of the rotors is enough to completely block out my answer. I cough once, twice – holy shit, there's a fuckton of dust in here – and it's after this when I realise they're never going to hear me like this. My stomach lurches in the realisation that my feet are no longer connected to the ground.

Trying to control my breathing, I lower myself into a seat against the cold hard side of the flying thing, and retreat into my thoughts. I had never realised the Brotherhood of Steel were active in New Jersey. Back in – that place, they always told us that the Brotherhood was the enemy, but I'd never seen them. Until now. Either way, it's for the best that they don't find out who I was.

We New Jerseyans all know that they've turned that weird pentagon of theirs down in the Capital Wasteland into a stronghold. Rivet City's supposedly aligned with them, and Rivet City's apparently one of the Republic's biggest trading partners. The Brotherhood have been even stronger if it hadn't been for an odd series of internal political conflicts.

But I'd never imagined they'd be so close. The Brotherhood was supposed to operate in the wild lands where civilisation didn't exist, or at least, that's what the rumours in Atlantic City told us. So what the Brotherhood of Steel was doing in what was by all recognition Republic territory was mystifying, to say the least. It made perfect sense why they were trying to avoid Republic attention; doing this, whatever the hell this was, would be a fantastic way to start a war.

Which makes me wonder.

What if there's already a war?

* * *

"Of all the damn things I have to do…"

The voice of that woman who'd reluctantly rescued me from the Vault 98ers last night now swims back into my mind. A metal hand, clamped tightly around my shoulder, violently shakes me, banging my head against the wall beside what I'm lying in – some kind of surface, it seems. My eyelids shudder open, as I realise I'm resting on some kind of pillow in a poorly lit room, almost like a closet or a prison cell, and that the floor beneath me isn't vibrating.

I must have fallen asleep. On a vertibird. I really don't know how I managed that. I'll probably never know.

Those thoughts are quickly erased from my head when I see that I'm staring into a human figure still clad in a full set of power armour.

"Get up!" she commands.

I pull myself into a seated position, wondering if these military types ever act like normal fucking human beings.

"Where…am…I?" I ask, groggily. My energy weapon is resting on the side of my bed; good. I'm not a prisoner. It'd be quite annoying indeed if the Brotherhood had decided to make be a captive.

"Where you are is of no importance," she replies with great disdain. "We're getting you out of here and into Toms River the moment this business ends. Anyway, we're interrogating that woman."

I swing my legs over and touch the ground, slowly standing up, and reaching for my blaster and slinging it over my shoulder. Nothing's off. That's a good sign. I was afraid that they'd try and confiscate it, being advanced technology and whatnot. But I suppose that these things are common enough that they don't bother wasting their resources.

With scarcely a wasted breath, she leads me out into a crumbling corridor – yet, one that still has the electricity rather tenuously restored. Her armour clanks hard against the floor, her head scrapes against the patchy, falling ceiling, and I wonder if this is really necessary.

* * *

I am led into another room, wherein another armoured figure stands over a groggy-looking Sarah Wilkins, the latter bound to a chair, blood caked below her nose and her hands invisible behind her. The armour, I realise, isn't for me. They probably could care less about some random girl who happened to wander across their path. And despite everything, I really do not care to see what happens to Wilkins, because I know whatever it is will not be particularly pretty.

Alas. "You travelled with her," the woman who brought me here says, "you get to watch. We might need you later. And keep your weapon at the door, please."

"But – I was captured – I know nothing," I protest, pulling my weapon off and placing it against the wall.

Before the woman can respond, "Paladin Rider," the man says, "are we ready to start?"

The woman – Rider – turns. "Yes, Knight Fox."

And so they begin.

They aren't rough, not at first; they just ask questions, which Wilkins doesn't answer. Paladin Rider circles the desk, sending Wilkins's head spinning in circles, while Knight Fox simply hangs further back, looking on, occasionally interjecting with some vague comment. I recognise the scenario from the pre-War detective novels Kenji likes reading to me. Rider's the bad cop, Fox is the good cop. I guess.

My stomach twists. Where is Kenji, anyway? He must still be back in...Forked River, right, yeah, Forked River? He must be safe. There's no way he couldn't have beaten that mercenary. I clasp my hands together, feeling the sweat start to lubricate my skin. He's got to be alright.

Just as I've begun to zone out, I am lurched by Rider suddenly yelling, and placing her metal-gloved hand around Wilkins's head, making the latter's eyes suddenly lurch open in abrupt alertness. Knight Fox raises his hand, but lowers it a moment later, letting Rider do her thing.

"You people know something, Wilkins," she hisses. If I could see her mouth, I would have seen gritted teeth. "Tell us what it is."

"We're just trying to protect this country," Wilkins gasps, laughing joylessly. Of course. She'd just seen half a dozen of her comrades either die or be scattered. "And maybe you'll come along to helping us."

"So…that would be…what, exactly?"

"Just as the Super Mutants came from the west…" Wilkins pants, "they're coming from the east. We're...we're the only chance you have."

"Who are they?" Rider asks, her hand falling on Wilkins's hair, making the orange-skinned woman wince.

"We don't know," Wilkins.

"You don't know," Rider replies disbelievingly, "and you know you're the only chance you have, huh?" She tugs hard on Wilkins's musty hair, making her wince again and cry out a little.

There's acting. I've seen enough of it to know that Wilkins is not acting. Even if she's lying, she's telling what she believes is true. "She's telling the truth!" I yell out. "Stop it!" A moment later, I realise what I've done, and I cover my mouth and try to bury my face my hands.

Rider shoots me what must be a look of disgust behind the power armour. Knight Fox casually steps forward, ignoring both of us. He nods at Wilkins, he beckons her to continue.

"We…er, we started picking up the odd radio signals about two and a half years ago," Wilkins explains. "They…well, they seemed to be coming from somewhere out to sea, and alternated between English and French. Intermittent and patchy, too, as if we didn't have the right radio. Something like that, I'm not a fucking technician. Anyway, it was pretty jumbled. But we could tell they were looking for something."

"Was it a girl, by chance?" Fox asks softly. "About ten years old?"

My ears perk up. How did seemingly literally everyone in New Jersey know about this girl _except_ me?

Wilkins hesitates a moment, then nods. "Yes."

Rider lets go of Wilkins's hair, her helmet still aimed dead in my direction.

"And you found her," Fox continued.

Wilkins nods.

But before she can speak her next sentence, someone else rushes into the room - an initiate, as I have heard them called.

"Intruders, Paladin!" he gasps. "In the base!"

"Intruders?" Rider replies, incredulously. "Here?"

The scribe nods, panting heavily. "Some raider or mercenary type…and a super mutant!"


	12. Ocean County Airport (II)

"Why are you bothering me about it?" Paladin Rider responds harshly, as the implications of this super mutant sighting set in my mind. "Can't you see we're busy here? Oh, fine. Have these intruders brought to me. Alive, if possible, but dead if possible. And get the hell out of here."

Maybe I'm wrong, and this isn't Kenji. But to my beating heart, whether I'm right or wrong is irrelevant. How many super mutants could there be in this part of New Jersey, anyway? It has to be him.

"Wait!" I scream instinctively moments after the newcomer has hurriedly left the room, reaching for my gun. "If you hurt them…I swear…"

There is a clank and a whoosh of air, and in less than a blink of my eye, the long barrel of Paladin Rider's weapon is staring into my gaping face.

"Oh?" she sneers. "So they're friends of yours, I presume?"

"Er…yes…" I manage. "Well, one of them is." From the sound of it, I can only believe that the mercenary was that same random fellow I'd seen back in that gymnasium, and Kenji and he have kissed and made up – or maybe, one was forcibly dragging the other along with him. I can only hope it's Kenji leading – no, Kenji would never do such a thing.

"I knew this was a bad idea," the Paladin said, shaking her head. "I told the Sentinel myself. But no, of course she had to make us take you in. Those robot parts she's got have made her soft. She might as well just retire and purify water for a living." The Paladin huffed, making me take another stumbling step backwards. "Well, it's no matter. The Sentinel's gone off to Old Light, so I'm in charge now."

My heart skips a beat, then accelerates again, as her barrel thrusts about another foot straight into my nose, close enough that my pupils cross if I stare at the end.

I was right about one thing I'd heard, though. The Brotherhood of Steel does indeed think with their guns, not their minds. I suppose it's only appropriate for the sons and daughters of soldiers to be soldiers themselves.

"Calm down, Paladin," a voice says from my side. The fact that Knight Fox had also been in the room had entirely slipped from my mind in that moment. "Perhaps it's not what you think."

"He's a _Super Mutant_ , Knight Fox," Rider responds with bile. "Their kind must be eradicated from the earth. Or do you not remember how they almost destroyed this country a decade ago? Even Sentinel Cross would agree with me, after all she saw back in the days before we had Liberty Prime."

"Fine," Fox responds.

The interrogation continues, but I do not see what happens next, since Rider has me forcefully escorted from the room. My gun is taken from me – how familiar – and I am placed in the same room I'd been in earlier. As she leaves, I hear the click of a lock on the door.

I lay back on the bed, trying to get what comfort I can. Kenji is here, I think, it'll all be okay, it'll all be okay.

And at least, now, I have an answer – _I think_ – for where our girl is. Vault 98. I know where it is, too: not far from here.

But more questions still haunt me. How does everyone know of her? Why is everyone looking for her? And why are the Vaulters infiltrating everything?

More importantly, Charlotte seems to be connected to – my detective instincts tell me that not even Vault 98 knows who.

So, god damn it, _who is she?_

* * *

I am fiddling with the Pip-Boy on my arm, listening again to this Radio Neuf-Trois. From what little I can discern, one of the songs I hear seems to be called something like "Poupeé" something something, by some woman named France Gall. It's actually a lovely song, even if I can't understand at all what the hell she's saying.

And there's another named – I think – "Bernadette" – that's the name repeated about a dozen times. And another – "Champs-Elysees?" – I've heard that used to be a place, a mythical place, where music and sex used to flow in the broad sun-lit streets – and another – they all blend together after a time.

Before I can fall asleep, the door opens. I instinctively back up and tense, because it is a shadowed figure in Brotherhood power armour. The figure isn't wearing a helmet, but it's dark enough that I can't see facial details.

"Nice Pip-Boy," a gentle man's voice says. It's not Paladin Rider – it's Knight Fox. In my relief, his words sound like music on a gentle draft.

"Er…thanks," I respond, trying to smile.

"You'll be pleased to know that I was able to convince the Paladin to let you get out of here. Your friend explained everything."

I bring myself to my feet and dust myself off the best I can. "Kenji?" I ask, hopefully.

"Yeah," he nods. "And the other guy." I can't help but smile – he' "But there's one thing you've got to help us with first."

* * *

As I am led into the room where a dozen or so figures are sitting around a table, casually talking amongst each other, there are two non-Brotherhood members sticking out like sore thumbs at one end. One is Kenji.

The moment I see him, I rush up to him and embrace. He chuckles softly, looking happier and more energetic than the last I saw him. "Heh, it's been a while, no?" he whispers in my ear.

"Yeah." I bury my face in his chest.

I then lock eyes with the other figure, the "mercenary" from earlier, still clad in the same cowboy attire from earlier.

"Oh," Kenji says, "this is Perez."

Perez waves at me. "Howdy."

"Perez is from Timbuktu. He's a pretty nice guy, actually."

"But…you two were…"

"It was all a big misunderstanding," Perez grins, showing a silver tooth. "Kenji's a pretty nice guy, too." His accent was somewhat strange – enough to tell me he couldn't have originally been from New Jersey. I've met a few Floridians in my life, and they sound a bit like that. Yeah – the accent, the black hair, the tanned skin – definitely Floridian.

"And Kenji's told me all about you," Perez continues.

My smile deepens.

And it is within a minute that my smile fades, as soon as I discover what I'm being asked to do.

* * *

"So let me get this straight," I ask. "You want _us_ to help you with storming Vault 98. I'm not a fucking soldier."

"We don't have that many people, and time is of the essence," Paladin Rider responds, scowling – I suspect that, even with this supposed Sentinel Cross gone, the Paladin was not the one giving orders. With her power armour's helmet off, she's a middle-aged blonde woman with a scowl on her face – about what I'd expected of her.

Fox tries to calm the situation. "We're not asking you to do much, just accompany us, and help out as much as you can. Believe me, we didn't want to do this either, but we need your help – the people in this room are all we have. The nearest reinforcements are days away and – they're preoccupied. Damn Scarlet Knights."

Trying to ignore his comment, I look at Kenji, and he nods. I turn back to Fox, and nod in turn. I can accept this, I decide. It's not like I haven't seen combat before, and if it's necessary for getting the job done, it's what I'll do.

"There's something we've gleaned from our prisoner – with a little, er, _encouragement_ ," Rider begins. I really do not want to know what they actually did to Wilkins, a sinking pit of a feeling worsened by the fact that Rider is sitting next to a bag with a syringe visibly sticking from the opening at the top. "The main entrance is in Toms River. We can't go in that way. But – Vault 98 had been busy digging several secret tunnels, to serve as alternate exists. One of them opens out into the ruins of the pre-War community known as Holiday City, about two miles from here. Our scouting reports suggested the area was clear of wildlife."

Fox had a visible grimace on his face as he continues. "Right, so, Vault 98." He claps his hands together. "It shouldn't be too difficult of a mission. We go in through this tunnel, get the girl, get any useful information and technology they have, and get out the same way we came in. Easy,"

"It's never this easy," Perez mutters, just loud enough for me to hear. "Not with these people."


	13. Holiday City

AN: Sorry about not having updated this in quite some time; I'd just been a tad preoccupied with other things and, thanks to a couple of weird depressive episodes, temporarily lacking inspiration for this. Nevertheless, here we are. I know it's a short update, but it's helping setup what's coming next.

* * *

Just hours later, in a clearing in the dead woods, we find ourselves around the little metal hatch in the ground. There are, in total, eleven of us – half a dozen Brotherhood soldiers, a pair of Scribes, and the three of us. Bringing a vertibird out here would only draw unwanted attention.

Eleven may not seem like a lot, but the Brotherhood leaders reassure us that we're not here for conquest. It's more like a policing job. Which makes me wonder what the actual authorities have been doing? The mayor of Forked River hadn't been found yet, had she? Maybe she, too, had been imprisoned in Vault 98.

With two fell strokes from some sort of energy drill, Paladin Rider effortlessly cleaves the hatch in half and neatly opens a passageway into the ground.

Into the Vault.

In the light of the Brotherhood's torches, I see Kenji's eyes. His usual, graceful confidence is gone, completely wiped from his pupils.

He shows nothing but fear.

* * *

The passage is dark, and the lack of daylight does not help. In the torchlight, the floor is visibly covered with slabs of grate.

"Kenji," I whisper, the noise obscured by the Brotherhood's bootsteps. "Are you alright?"

He nods gingerly.

"No you're not. The last time you were in a vault, it was…"

He raises a – _shaky_ – hand to stop me. "I'll be fine. It's what has to happen."

"Something wrong?" Perez juts in.

"No," we both say simultaneously. "Nothing at all."

* * *

They must have known we had come, because no more than a few hundred feet in, we hear the familiar sound of footsteps coming in our direction, following by a few volleys of gunfire. "Stay back!" someone calls out to me, and I feel myself being pushed back. I almost stumble and fall, but Kenji catches me before I can.

Fortunately for us all, Brotherhood armour is infinitely better than stray bullets, and within seconds, four Vaulters are knocked to the ground. Perez whistles in appreciation. I suppose part of it is the fact that he does not even have to join in.

Advancing forwards again, this recurs after about another minute. Another three or four – even with the Brotherhood's torches, we cannot particularly see well, only silhouettes. Perhaps they are robots – they do not scream when they fall. Perhaps they are humans, professionals, meant to die a peaceful, honourable, soldierly death even in peace.

And suddenly, I feel a little better about this. At the end of this long tunnel must lie Charlotte. I can almost see the end in sight – literally; there's a little field of pinpricks of light at the far end.

"Who are you?" a deep voice booms. "What do you want?"

"Lower your weapons," someone whispers from our end, and everyone complies.

"We are the Brotherhood of Steel," I hear Knight, "and we are here for answers."

"And you will get them. We seek no war."


	14. Toms River

"Then speak," Paladin Rider orders harshly.

"We do not talk with soldiers," the voice responds, calmly, having suddenly taken on a calm air of authority that seemed entirely out of place considering the situation. "We know you have civilians with you. Send them instead."

I feel a slight chill on the back of my neck. How could they possibly know that?

Even without seeing, I can feel Paladin Rider tense. "You have no space to talk," she shouts. "We're the ones with the guns here!"

"Are you really?"

A pause.

"As you Brotherhood soldiers stand there, we have half a dozen miniguns trained on your position and ready to fire at our command."

"Impossible!" Paladin Rider whispers. They're right – their night vision should pick up any such objects even in this pitch dark.

"No. Not impossible."

In a flash, there is a loud burst of noise, and a flash of bullets, and I wince as – I think Kenji covers my body behind him to protect me. The loud screech of a fallen soldier – two, in fact – resonates through the corridor.

And within no more than four seconds and scarcely a single breath, it is all over.

The lights switch on, illuminating a small segment of the tunnel. At first, it is entirely empty, but there is a hexagonal shimmering pattern, and the thin air bends to reveal what indeed are half a dozen miniguns, the smoke from their recent volley of fire still rising to haze up the narrow, confined space. They must have used modified versions of – what are those? – oh yes, Stealh Boys. I've heard stories, but this is the first time I've seen them with my own eyes.

Paladin Rider is on the ground, visibly wincing as Knight Fox kneels down to check. Another Brotherhood soldier lies – unconscious, I can still hear the echoing sounds of his raspy breath.

Every instinct in my body is telling me to run away. And the other Brotherhood soldiers start taking one, then two steps back, picking up their fallen comrades and preparing to drag them away. But Paladin Rider raises a halting, metal-gloved hand. Her intent is clear. _Stay, you idiots, and fight._

"Now, shall we try this again?" I swear I can hear the voice gulp a little. "You can leave. Or you can talk to us. And we do not talk with soldiers."

"Let me go." Perez says in a fraction of an instant. His voice and his eyes are filled with determination. He's out for blood. "I'll take care of this."

Paladin Rider, turns her helmet to look at him, but Knight Fox just looks at him and gives him a thumbs-up. It's better for him, I figure, placing Perez at stake instead of one of the Brotherhood men.

"Let me come with you," Kenji says, and Perez nods with a surprising lack of protest. In the light, I see him give me a singular, pleading glance. _It's how we don't fight._ And that's all that's necessary to settle it.

I nod, and follow them as they take one, then two, then three uncertain steps towards…towards whatever fate awaits us on the far side.

* * *

As it turns out, we are greeted by a man and a woman, both holding impressive-looking rifles above their _98_ blue-and-yellow Vault jumpsuits. And both have that strange orange skin. And both are wearing Pip-Boys on their wrists – flashy, shiny, mint-condition ones. I look down at my scratched-up one with some degree of jealousy.

"Hello, Miss Jackson," the woman says with a curt smile, gesturing us down the tunnel and further into the vault. The man remains silent, judging us with worn-looking eyes. "We've been expecting you. You're a lot more determined than we thought."

 _You could be a bit less predictable about it,_ I want to retort, but the words do not come out. So that's why they hadn't wanted to parlay with the Brotherhood. They'd wanted _us_ specifically. Why? Could it be linked to this mythical "threat" the woman back at Brotherhood camp had talked to us about?

"And we've been expecting your friends, too…Kenji, yes?" And Perez? Perez, you are a determined one."

"You should know why, little fuckers," he growls in reply. "Now where is she?"

Now this could be a potential problem. He wants. But we have a job to complete. And nothing will stand between me and getting the girl safely to Coral.

I decide it's best to shelve that issue, at least for now. That bridge can be built when we get there – that's how the saying goes, right?

"Patience, child," the woman continues. "Patience, for there will be time later. Now, we must discuss more pressing concerns."

I've never been in a Vault before. So when we emerge out of the tunnel into a fluorescent-lit, metal-grey corridor marked MAINTENANCE, I can do nothing but silently stare around – at the ancient oblong windows and the lights and – how _confined_ everything is. I see a pair of people – both armed, again – pass by us, giving us odd looks, and the ceiling is no more than a few inches above their head.

I'd go absolutely mad having to be in here longer than a few days.

I look at Kenji. He tries to look down, but all that's down is the floor. He tries to look up, from side to side, but all that's up and side to side are the ceiling and the walls.

Perez has been oddly silent for someone who has offered to come along like this. It makes me realise: he's only here to see the girl. He doesn't care about any of this other shit. And I can understand that – I'd do the same in his position – whatever the hell his position actually _is_.

We've got to get out of here before Kenji goes absolutely mad.

We're led past the MAINTENANCE tunnel and down some stairs. "We'll let you meet in a second," the woman says. "We'll prove to you that she's alive." She looks at Perez. "I promise, we've been treating her well. She's just a kid, after all."

Perez nods, seemingly unimpressed, an anxiety still crossed all over his face.

"What about the mayor…in Forked River?" I ask. "Where is she?"

"She was asking too many questions about the girl," she responds, "and so she came to us. She'd found what we were doing, and she threatened to expose everything. We couldn't have that. So she's dead now."

"Dead," I reply, blankly. Perez seems to just nod in acceptance, and Kenji…I slip my hand into Kenji's trembling fingers, and I look at him. _You're going to be okay. I'm sorry._ And he nods.

"Yes. Dead. Devoid of life. If the pre-War maps are correct I believe her body should be drifting up through the North Atlantic…and maybe whoever we've been tracking will find it."

"Look. We did this…because it's the only way," the man says. "You _have_ to help. Please." His voice is quite unlike what I had expected. It's pleading, almost desperate. And it makes me wonder. What _exactly_ lies out there beyond the sea?

"And…what…exactly are we supposed to help you with?" Perez asks. "Because with all you've done…"

"I know," the man continues, closing his eyes and lowering his palms, as he stops in front of a door labelled CLASSROOM, letting a group of four Vaulters – again, all armed – pass us by. "Like I said, we had no choice. If we let this happen unchecked…" his head droops, sadly. "…then everything in this country will be lost. Forever."

* * *

After we're seated in this apparently disused classroom – my hand is still in Kenji's, and they seem to not have noticed – she lifts her wrist to show me her Pip-Boy. "Listen," she says, before pressing some buttons.

A stream of music comes at me. _"Come on baby! Let's do the twist…"_

"Fuck Peter!" the man yells, slamming his fist down into the table. "Fuck him and his stupid radio!"

The woman just giggles softly, before turning to another radio station – and all the joy fades.

It's static, mostly, but we can pick out a few words from the mess – distant voices. "Sunken…ship…New York…" They're oddly accented, almost dramatic, even if the speaker sounds…bored? "…the princess…kill everyone…two dead…"

 _Princess?_

"We do not have the slightest idea who these people are," the man explains. "But trust me, even we're better than the alternative. They've destroyed entire towns, entire _countries._ And we've heard all of it, over the past two years."


End file.
